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Oddschecker Global Media has announced a rebranded identity, becoming FairPlay Sports Media (FPSM) as the group looks to tell a broader story about the entities and capabilities it holds in the market.
In a move to enhance its international reputation as a partner for sports media outlets and betting operators, the company – owned by Bruin Capital – will retain the same structure regarding its brands.
This will see Oddschecker, WhoScored and SuperScommesse continue as its flagship divisions across its key markets.
However, by moving away from the group identity of Oddschecker, FPSM aims to promote itself as a sports media network as opposed to a purely odds-based service, reflecting its extensive partnerships with sports media and publishers.
Although the company described odds as a ‘life blood’, it insisted that it is more the capabilities that it’s bringing to the market that makes this a ‘really exciting time’.
Stuart Simms, Group CEO of FPSM, in the group’s debut official statement under its new brand identity, explained: “This is more than a new group name.
“The launch of FairPlay Sports Media allows us to empower our customers to better compete in sports betting, while delivering significant efficiencies and added value to our partners through the use of our game-changing betting technology.
“We’ve made various strategic acquisitions – with more in the pipeline – to best place ourselves to create more engagement with sports bettors and the data they need, the independent content they demand, and we’re excited to showcase how this realignment and BetTech focus will benefit everyone in the FairPlay Sports Media Network, particularly in the US market.”
Introducing… BetTech
As mentioned by Simms in FPSM’s announcement of its new identity, technology will play a ‘core part’ in the company’s operations going forward. This will come in the form of, as the group’s CEO explained, BetTech.
The ultimate goal of BetTech is to “level the playing field for all sports bettors across pricing, payouts, bonusing, intelligence and more”, FPSM explained in its statement. In a media briefing, Simms went into further detail.
“The reason why we’re coining the phrase BetTech in general is that we see it as an emerging trend where if you think simplistically, the cost of computing, the access to data has never been as big, and so for me, BetTech has really started.
“When we say the US market is relatively mature. I think betting technology is still relatively immature. The sharing of data between operators and affiliates is fairly limited, whereas in my experience of working retail the brands and the publishers and the networks used to work hand in glove in sharing a lot more information and data.
“Betting is fairly immature when it comes to programmatic personalisation and the use of data at scale to provide the consumer experiences relative to retail where I’ve seen it used at scale in a very compelling way.”
On a broader scale, relating to the brand’s global vision and positioning, the rebrand from Oddschecker to FPSM will help to “tell a broader story about the overall group,” Simms informed industry journalists.
The Oddschecker brand has wide recognition, with activity in 73 different markets and working with 170 operators per day. FPSM aims to keep it that way, Simms emphasised, whilst continuing to build on the foundation of its existing brands and media and operator partnerships.
“We’re not going to step back from the brands we operate,” he asserted. “Same thing with SuperScommesse, which already operates with an incredible loyal customer base in the Italian market.
“Fairplay helps us tell the broader story about the entities and the capabilities we have in the Italian market, but we’re still going to go to market with those consumer facing brands to really make the most of the technology that we’ve got, whilst also then complementing that with the work we’re doing with Gazzetta dello Sport, for example, and DAZN.”
Looking forward, the CEO highlighted that it expects the South American market to be a significant focus for the company, in terms of enhancing football products as services, as well as Italy and Spain.
